FINALLY! AN UPDATE!

On June 3, founder/director of ChildVoice International, Conrad Mandsager, along with his wife, parents and brother, as well as others from America arrived in Gulu, Uganda. This team, composed of medical doctors (Conrad’s’ father Bob and younger Brother Neil), two nurses and a variety of other professions, came excited about the opportunity to assist some of the Child Mothers that Brittany and I have interviewed as well as nearby local IDP’s (Internally Displaced Persons) by providing medical assessments and treatment. This was a very exciting time for Brittany and I as neither of us had ever met Conrad or the survey designer, 24 year old Master student from Brown University in Public Health – Tae, whom we were working with for a couple of months over email. This was a very eventful and exciting time of meeting and working together.

Throughout the five days the team worked in the medical clinic, an average of 150 patients were treated per day. It was no doubt a group effort! Where the time went, I definitely do not know. Already it is June 13, 2007, I left for Africa in April and it is already the middle of June?!

Brittany and I felt unprepared for the assignments given to us during this week. We knew that we were to complete the surveys of the 300 women before the teams’ arrival, and we knew that we would be assisting the medical team in a fashion of some sorts. What we did not know was that we would be requested to review our surveys and choose the top 100 most vulnerable women out of the 300 that we had interviewed, to be recruited to the medical clinic that was being held that week. Each day for five days Brittany and I were to escort the hired vans/drivers to the village where we would pick up 20 women to drive to the medical clinic to be assessed.

(After these 100 women receive their medical assessment and treatment, a second cut of 45 out of those 100 women will be initiated. These 45 women will be the first group of women chosen to enter into the pilot program of ChildVoice Internationals long-term plan of creating a sustainable community for the reconciliation, rehabilitation and reintegration of formerly abducted child mothers. This program will provide physical, spiritual, psychological, intellectual and financial support for the child mothers through the many programs and services that will be provided.)

Having been on our own (Brittany and I) and nearly the only persons of snow-white skin color throughout the actual town of Gulu for nearly six weeks, it was admittingly a little awkward to, first of all, share Brittany with the other members of the team and secondly to associate with members of my very own American culture – on their terms. Within the short six weeks of being in Uganda it had become more second nature to speak a certain way, react and respond in ways specific to the Ugandan culture. This time with the team was a fun re-transition (in thinking – regarding my usual American ways of being) as well as awareness of the realities of the influences of this rich culture!

After arriving and checking into the Hotel Diamond Complex (where Brittany and I stayed during the first two weeks of our time in Gulu), Brittany and I arrived to meet the team. I was thrilled to finally meet Conrad, his family and the rest of the team members after many weeks of delayed gratification! It was during this meal that Brittany and I were given our assignment to narrow down the first 100 women and to locate them within their IDP camps at least a day in advance in order to alert them of their opportunity to get a free medical and extremely inexpensive treatment for both themselves and their ill children.

Considering that every one of the women interviewed falls into a ‘vulnerable’ class, it was extremely difficult to begin selecting one woman over another, knowing that the one not chosen was in a state of desperation herself, but in one way or another, did not meet the necessary qualifications. Brittany and I each went through phases where at one point one of us would be able to objectively look at surveys and choose the most likely candidate over another without being emotionally involved, while the other was on a healthy roll of balancing the professionalism vs. the personalism within the work context. At times I would have to step back and say that I was taking a 10-minute breather and other times Brittany would. We agreed together that this process of choosing the top100 most likely candidates was more emotionally draining then any of the initial in person interviews that we conducted. To consider that potentially a women would receive a chance to enter into ChildVoice’s life-giving sustainable community pilot program or not depending upon decisions that we would make, created a sense of intense responsibility coupled with a very deep desire for wisdom and inner guidance.

Over the course of three days Brittany and I overviewed the surveys, always having at least twenty women chosen a day in advance in order to alert them in time that they would arrive to meet the van the following day. The day before any group of women arrived at the medical clinic for their free medical exams and treatment, one or both of us would travel to the village of the IDP camp and being to search for these women. Sometimes this had to be conducted through a door-to-door search, while other times we were able to have assistance from community members, or child-mother group leaders who are volunteers through out partnering organization, Action for Children.

I could write a small novel just on our experiences attempting to pick up the twenty women each day from their villages. For times sake I must keep it to the point. After the first day of picking up women from their villages it became obvious very quickly that we would need to come up with some sort of screen process before allowing a woman and her children to enter the bus. The first day upon arrival in Unyama, there were over 50 women waiting to board the van. Knowing we could only take the initial 20 women we requested, we did a roll call. Those who responded, entered the bus.

It did not take long to learn, when more then one women answered to a given name, that they were not being truthful in their identities. This created a lot of anger and resentment among the women that resulted in a mob-like mentality. Despite that these women knew they were not of the initial 20 invited to come to the medical clinic, they were so very desperate to receive assistance for themselves and/or their children that they were willing to claim to be one of their neighbors in order to get a spot on the bus. Because the World Food Programme was distributing food that very day, and because the 20 women we invited to come were of the most vulnerable of the interviewees, we learned that they were not willing to give up receiving their food ration for the week that day, to go to the medical clinic in Lukodi. Instead, their friends acted on their behalf claiming to be one of the women who was on our list, but choose to remain behind in order to receive their ration of food.

Brittany and I decided that despite the time it wouold take, we would have to dig through all of our papers to select each woman’s interview and ask specific questions, such as, ‘what village did you come from prior to moving to this IDP camp?’ in order to verify id the ‘Akello Milly Grace’, was actually who she claimed to be. Despite the time consuming process that it was, we learned that of the 20 women requested for that morning, only three actually showed up.

In the end we ended up filling up our vans to capacity with both the initial three women as well as a remaining 17 others and their children who were the most sick or injured of the remaining 47 women nearly mobbing us down to the ground.

The desperation of these women for assistance is real. It is intense, and it is dis-heartening. The government of Uganda claims to be willing to provide free medical care to the IDP’s currently living in the camps, however, the long-time problem remains, seldom are the drugs such as malaria medications, and antibiotics available to be distributed. The stocks are kept very low, and usually snatch up immediately by the needing members of the camps, just as soon as they arrive in.

There are many stories from this week, many…

One of them is as follows:

Just after arriving to the medical clinic in Lukodi with two vans full of women from Unyama village, I stepped out of the van, assisted the women and their children out of the van and began to compile various interviews in preparation to hand of the papers to those at the registration desks. As I was busy with my head in the papers, a young man approached me, asking if he could speak with me for a moment. Knowing I was in a time crunch, I requested the man wait for me to finish my current project. In the meantime I observed him, while I was finishing sorting the papers. He was over by a tree, waiting for my return, praying. Something in me promoted me to find him as soon as I finished my task. In doing so, I approached him and requested to hear his story. This man named Simon, who is 25 years old, is married to a young woman named Agnes who is 23 years old. Agnes was abducted at the age of 17 and lived in the bush for close to two years. After her return home, she married Simon and they now have a beautiful little one and a half year old daughter named Akello Mercy. Within six months after Agnes arrived home from the bush, she began having unexplained episodes of anxiety and bizarre behaviors that have continued to manifest in her life over the last few years. Finally after seeing a medical professional, Agnes was diagnosed with some form of psychosis disorder.

As a result, when Agnes experiences an episode of psychosis, she feels an urgent need to begin running away from anything the lives, moves or breathes. This results in her running for hours and hours at a time, within her own village. Also accompanied with this urge to run is the taste of blood in her mouth, images of killing people and /or dead people, an unexplained smell of burning flesh and the desire to kill both her daughter and husband. Agnes had been given medications to help balance out her moods and behaviors, however, due to a lack of finances, Simon was unable to provide both the medicines as well as necessary transport to the medical facilities for her weekly injections. This ended up creating a severe relapse for Agnes. When I met Simon that day, I knew I needed to help however I could.

I needed for Simon to get me the name of the medicines that Agnes needed, the problem was that they were located in her mothers village, nearly 60 kilometers away. Transportation and finances were an issue. I told Simon that he would have to work this out on his own, and that when he was able to get me the name of the medicines he needed for Agnes, I would look to see if we carried them in our supply at the clinic. I expected top see Simon back the following day, however, it was only five hours later that he returned to me, explaining that his family loaned him the transport money to take a boda boda to the village to get the name of the necessary drugs. Unfortunately we did not carry those medicines. I decided I would drive Simon back into town to meet with the doctors who were treating Agnes whenever she would go in for her weekly injections. The result of this meeting was that we were to bring Agnes to the hospital first thing in the morning. ( this was something he had been unable to do for some time now due to the distance from their camp in Cho-pee to the city of Gulu, as his wife was too weak to walk, let alone sit up by herself.

On the way home from the hospital we stopped to their hut to give her a dose of medicine that the doctor had given to us. Upon entering into their hut, I could instantly sense the desperation of Simon, as it became very apparent that Agnes was in very bad shape. I attempted to sit her up to give her the medications, but she could hardly swallow, let alone blink her eyes.

The next morning we arrived with one of our hired vans to pick up Agnes from her hut. Carried by both her husband and brother, Agnes laid limp in their arms. Agnes’ mother, auntie and daughter accompanied her and her husband to the hospital, where they have remained since taking them 8 days ago.

Agnes has a condition of severe posttraumatic stress syndrome and is suffering greatly from the mental images, sounds, tastes and smells of killing, death, dying, blood, and fires. Even when on the medications to mellow her mind, calm her behaviors and balances her emotions, the medicines make it very difficult for her to eat or swallow liquids. It is quite a trade-off. At this point, Agnes is still focusing on the physical rehabilitation, before the emotional, mental and spiritual healing can come.

This is a simple story shared with you to reveal to you the realities of the impact of this war. Simply because LRA is not currently actively terrorizing, the young children are no longer commuting from their IDP camps and villages to sleep under the verandas of churches and other NGO’s, and people are able to now walk freely on the streets without fear of further LRA attacks, does not mean that the people of northern Uganda are ‘free’. The situations they are now forced to live in – in the overly crowded IDP camps rampant with diseases, lack of food and water, the effects of child headed house-holds, children who return from the bush to find that their parents and many siblings have been killed by the LRA in addition to have had their homes burnt to the ground, indicate the need for long-term reconciliation, rehabilitation and reintegration back into a healthy society.

For people like Agnes, the services are few to assist her on the journey to health and healing. There are many Agnes’ out there, many more then the current assistance level can provide for. This is where Child Voice International comes into play, this is where prayer can be shown to be the powerful tool that it is. Please continue to pray for the people of northern Uganda that peace, would one day be known not just in their physical lives, but even more importantly, in their spirits.

Conrad Mandsager, director of ChildVoice International was given the use of the medical clinic by the government of Uganda in exchange for renovating and preparing the facilities. Conrad was able to find funding from America to keep this clinic open indefinitely. Despite that the medical team from America has returned back to America, the clinic will resume again for the IDP’s beginning next week, after the interview processes are complete this weekend.

Tae, (designer of the interview forms for the child mothers), will remain in Gulu through the beginning of August and will be overseeing the functioning of the clinic throughout this time. Tae is responsible for the interviewing and hiring of the local Ugandan medical professionals that will staff the clinic, in addition to many other various responsibilities. This is a tremendous blessing for ChildVoice to have the opportunity to utilize this building as a medical clinic, as well as to have the very hard working and committed Tae be willing to oversee the beginning phases of this clinic.

Acen Brittany has left for America two days ago. It is now just I.
Poor, Apio, who is Apio without Acen?

Nevertheless, I remain well and continue to be very busy finishing up the various projects I am working on. Last week, Brittany and I went on an 8 hour (very rough and tightly packed) bus ride down to Soroti where we spent one and a half days together before she departed Soroti for Kampala in order to fly back to America. I remained in Soroti for another two and a half days, enabling me to finish up the project we were working on, before returning back to Gulu two nights ago. *(I will write up about my time in Soroti in another posting, it is worth it’s own space apart from this story)!* I spent all of yesterday in bed recovering from some unknown illness that produced various stages of nauseasness, fever – chills, headache. Despite waking up this morning without any symptoms other then the headache, I got a nice scare when I looked into the mirror to see that my blue eyes are now more red then blue… thanks to the lovely pink eye infection.

And the last little story to share with you this morning is that of how I attempted to remedy my pink-eye issue. Knowing I would not be wearing my contacts today, I got out my glasses which I seldom wear due to them not fitting very well on my head. At home I know I can use a blow dryer to warm the plastic to mold it to form my head again after continuous wear stretches the frames causing them to be very loose. I do not have a blow dryer here, so I considered the next best option – the propane stove used to boil water. I turned that baby on and proceeded to carefully warm the plastic nose bridge of my glasses in order to bend them back into shape. Oops. As the nose bridge was warming, the top right side of my frame was not burning, but bubbling, actually boiling… ! I did not realize that the frame was exactly where it was over the flame. Needless to say, I have very unique and eccentric frames that will now be held together with duct tape in order to hold the right lens in the frame.

Pink eye and boiled glasses…

I am not sure how long I will remain in Gulu before proceeding on in this journey. I will remain here for sure until I finish up the various projects I have begun. I have a couple of interviews yet to conduct with different NGO’s, a few individuals to follow up on – all of whom are in different villages, four sets of friends I must re-united with (large families – this can day an entire day each!) I will be delivering the doors that are now completed to the IDP camp of Lukodi tomorrow, as well as finishing up organizing the interview forms - arranging them in appropriate order assisting Tae with inputting the data into a computer program, locating the women of the four villages who did not show up the first time around for the medical exams in attempts request their visit to the medical clinic for exams, as well as anything else I can assist Tae in doing regarding her various responsibilities.

From Gulu I may or may not (depending upon how long it takes me to finish up here in Gulu) return to Soroti in order to assist more at the medical clinic I was working with while there last week, as well as take a side trip to a village that would enable me to meet the mother and siblings of a very special friend named Mary, in addition to visit a large orphanage enabling me to conduct another important interview. Regardless of going to Soroti, I will go to Kampala for approximately one week where I will spend time with a 21 year old named Simon whom I sponsor to complete his education. I will also be meeting up with representatives from various NGO’s in order to continue necessary interviews as well as network in order to leave Uganda with the appropriate information needed to write up specific proposals I will be working on, presentations Brittany and I will be putting together in order to inform others about the current situations faced in Northern Uganda, as well as around the world concerning Internally Displaced Peoples, Child Soldiers and the importance of the 3 R’s; Reconciliation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration and how as a networking team of humans we can assist in these necessary processes around the world, from the very places we live in America.

After leaving Kampala, I will fly to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where I will meet up with my girlfriend Catherine Miller who has started up an orphanage in Woliso – about an hours drive from the capital. I will be there for a week to visit with she and her husband – Estiphanos, the children of the orphanage as well as experience a bit of the Ethiopian culture, which I have concluded is entirely different from that of Ugandan culture!
From Ethiopia that plan stands now that I will return to America via London – where I will stay one or two nights with a friend. From London, I will fly to Seattle, take a bus to Whitefish where I will visit my long-time much missed friend, Jamie Anderson before driving 20 minutes away to stay with Acen Brittany and her family! Here Brittany and I will put together a presentation complete with our African music, slideshow, and stories with the aim to share with others the unique and rich experiences that you have all been a part of assisting us in making possible. From Montana, Brittany will accompany me home to Sitka where she will receive the opportunity to meet my family and friends, and provide for you Sitkans a most fabulous presentation of the experiences we’ve had together in Uganada.

I am continuously torn – I love my family, my friends, summer in Alaska, etc. and yet, I am exactly where I have dreamed of being since I was ten years old – in Africa, living with, learning from, assisting however I can, and being an advocate on behalf of those who cannot speak out for themselves.

Thank you all so much. So very very much. My time here has been rich, and it would not have been possible without each one of you supporting me either financially, spiritually and/or emotionally and mentally.

I do miss you.

Yes, I miss you too Acen! (I cannot go anywhere Acen without people saying, “Poor Apio, Apio is lonely without Acen!)


Love from the “Extraordinary team of Apio and Acen – from Africa and America”!